New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1887-07-31
TOLSTOl'S SEBASIOPOL.
A MODERN IDOL

The -.
ancticn BIZ W. d. HowELIs. With Portrait l6mo.
pp 241. Harper Brother&
In his sebastopol sketches Tolstoi is at his best,
and perbaps no moro striking example OF his man.
ner and form can be found. These Photographic
mixtures of war are distinguished alike by truth
and boldness The grim details OF slaughter are
faithfully reproduced. The babituation OF the
men engaged in this work to all its terrifying and
revolving conditions, even to the constant contin-
gency of death or mutation. is shown simply yet
,mpressively. The careessness with which the
accustomed amusements are sought, the cailous'
ness with which the actors contemplate the daily
and hourly castastrophes. the dominance OF tnv-
ial interests over all the great problems
brought so near by the contiguity of death-each
and every place of this abnormal life 10 given due
emphasis. That these representations are true 10
nature is undeniable. In tho prisons Oh raIis
when the guillotine WAS kept busy oy the cro"oeo
tumbrs. the doomed aristocrats iiyed tneir own
lives. followed their customary habits, conVerseu
with the poiiteness and fppaucy OF their time and
order and submitted their threats to the axe WITH
ont A tremor. In medieval Europe, when tue
Black Death was changing populous cities into
wildernesses the survivors lost all sense OF fear.
all concern for the future The second nature
called habit can conquer the apprehension which
seems most instructive and deepest 1t is not alone
in war and pestileuce that this is seen. There are
coasts SO inhospitable that among the seafarers
who earn precarlous subsistence there 1t is tho
rule not the exception. to be drowned. In the
poor villages scattered along those inclement
coasts it would be difficult to find family which
had not been thus bereaved. In turn the grizzed
patriarch. the stalwart bridegroom, the blooming
lad the boy just learning his fishers trade. sail
away to return no more The fate of battle is the
perennial fate of these communities Yet they
have grown so used to it that no destruction
wrought by elemental forces. however widespread,
operates to dissuade the survivors from
pursuing the same dangerous occupation.
Is death indeed so generally and greatly
fearedi Not only the soldier and sailor,
not only the citizen in time of pestilence learn in
difference to the great change. but men In score
of radesand manufactures attain like careiessness
The miner the torprdoer of the oil fields. the pow
der mill operative face death continuously and
without trepldation. Custom masters this appre-
hensiou no less easily than lighter ones
This truth Tolstoi illustrates with characteristic
s,mplicity and moro than characteristic terseness
in the Sebastopol sketches. For terseness Is not
salient quality in this author, and its absence
marks defect in him. The present volume is I'M
usually compact, clear, direct and senrhcanh
Mr.. Howells in his uncritical INTRODUCTION
which indeed he does not put forward as
other than panegyric-ls for insisting upon the
deep Significance of all Tolstois writings. Consid-
ering the exaltation of the mood in which he APP
pears to be working this demand is not surprising
but if we are to get what is best in them out of
Tolstois books it must be by methodical analysis
and appreciation, and not by untempered absorp'
ton of every thing he has produced. Examination
is the more necessary because there are few authors
on whose reputation the doctriueO of penary nspira-
ton would work more mischief. The truth. patent
long since to dispassionate and judicial leaders, Is
that Count Tolstoi is exasperatingy and painfully
diffuse, and that not seldom but often. 1t Is
equally true that there Is frequently no
perceptible significance in his tedious diva
cations, which meander loosely on in
sluggish current of the kind of purposeless and
pointless talk which the irreverent in Western
lands have learned to call padding" His Peace
and War" is especially faulty in this regard, and
"Anna Kareninan would have been much more
powerful story if from one-third to half OF 1T had
been eliminated.
To such as amuse themselves by regarding TOstoi
as thevery first living writer of fiction OF course
structures of the kind here made must appear little
less than blasphemous. That fact. however. is an
additional reason for cautious yet candid criticism
There are so many good people who get their ideas
ready made that it is duty to see that they are
not furnished with views which will not stand
the wear and tear of time. Just O curious
impatience of sober inquiry has given an air of
peculiar extravaganza to the enunciation OF
opinions concerning what is called the " Russian
school" of writers. They are auded with an en-
thusiasm more suggestive of Swinburne's ecstatic
panegyric upon Victor Hugo than of serious con-
sderaton and expression and their faults, which
are many and decided. are put out of sight alto
gether Now this is not possibly continuing state
of affairs In the long run the reading public pass
tbao ind
upon writers of fiction and the basis of that jndg
meat is precisely the element of common humanity
which some modern critics. oddly enough, would
deny the possession of to the people at large.
II for example the majority should affirm
that the description OF childhood boy
hood and youth in David Copperfeld
Is incomparably truer and finer than TolstOPs book
ON the same stages of life, may be sure that
this verdict would imply q general recognition
of the boy according to Dickens and as general
failure to recognize the boy according to Tolstoi.
Against such verdict. moreover, individual opin-
ION has force. because the best conceivable test
of an authors fidelity to human nature is the ex-
tent of the sympathy created by him among human
beings.
There is much in Tolstoi of which the meaning
isobscure. We feel that perhaps he may be faith
fully describing Russian idiosyncrasies, but that
he certainly is not describing those which are CON-
mon possessions of the race. The moods
which his characters take on are also
not infrequently such cannot but appear foreign
to wanting the tincture of OrieDtalism which
cOlors the Russian character. and above all which
characterizes the Russian intellectual movement.
In Tolstoi we find this peculiar tincture mingled
with the Muscovite melancholy which is the joint
product of physical conditions aud governmental
system. The WEAKNESS Of the interminabe plains.
the depression due to age-long subjugatiOu. throw
all Russian imaginative creations into the minor
key. Western criticism, tired of the sensational,
ripe for reaction, has seized upon the simplicity
and brooding sadness of Russian fiction with
eagerness. and has insisted upon browning it as
the latest product of artistic refinement But 1t is
questionable whether its genesis has been truly
accounted for If we look closely into its sur
roundings we shall see reason to suspect that